Parent Mentors of Ohio

RAY CHARLES taught himself piano at age three. When he lost his sight at the age of seven, he entered the St. Augustine School for the Deaf and Blind, where he learned classical piano and how to compose scores in Braille. After being orphaned at sixteen, he left the school and joined a country-western band, and over the next ten years, he criss-crossed the South, where he absorbed different musical influences before finally settling on a sound of his own. This sound would become known as "soul" due to the emotional intensity invested into each lyric.